Free Strange Conflict by Dennis Wheatley Page B

in Bermondsey or near it, but neither was sufficiently large to give the German bombers much help and in bothcases smoke partially obscured the red glow of the flames. Occasionally there was a bright flash as a bomb exploded on the ground or an anti-aircraft shell in the sky.
    One of the latter seemed to tear the air asunder with a frightful ripping sound within a few feet of the Duke, and had he been poised there in his physical body, swinging from a parachute, he would have been blown to ribbons, but, as it was, he did not even feel the faintest shock. While he was still studying the scene a Nazi murder-plane hummed past him and he would have given a very great deal to have been able to strangle its pilot and bring it crashing to earth. He could easily have entered it, but to have done so would have been pointless, since in his spirit body he could not make himself either heard or felt, and to have upset the airman’s mentality by bringing psychic force to bear would have been contrary to the Law which has created all things as they are.
    At that moment the plane released a heavy bomb and de Richleau, deciding that he must not hang about up there but get on with his own business, dropped swiftly with it to within twenty feet of the dark roof-tops. The bomb struck a block of flats; brick, glass and cement were hurled high into the air and one corner of the block dissolved in flaming ruins. That it had killed several people the Duke knew, as he saw their spiritual bodies rise up from the smoking debris. One—evidently that of a person who in life had been conscious of the hidden truths—gave a shout of joy, which was perceptible to de Richleau, and made off at once, full of happy purpose. The others remained hovering there, forlorn, unhappy and bewildered, evidently not fully understanding yet what had happened to them and that they were dead; but they were not left in that state for long.
    Even before the fire-fighters and rescue-squads came clattering into the street below to aid the still living, if there were any such pinned beneath the smoking heap of rubble, the spiritual rescue-squads appeared to aid those from whom life had been stricken. Some, as the Duke knew, were helpers who had no present incarnation, while others of them were just like himself—spirits whose Earthly bodies were sleeping; but there was no means to distinguish which was which. It was part of the duties of the enlightened tohelp the unenlightened over to the other side immediately after they had sustained the shock of death, and the Duke himself had often performed such work, leaving his body while he slept to travel in spirit to places where large numbers of people were being wiped out, without warning, through war or great disaster. He would have helped on this occasion had his own business not been urgent and had it not been apparent that ample helpers were already busy leading the bewildered newly dead away.
    Although the jumble of dark roof-tops would have been incredibly confusing to the physical eye, the Duke knew not only that he was in Kensington, but his exact whereabouts. Flashing over the great, flattened dome of the Albert Hall he turned north across the Park and, coming down a little, arrived in Orme Square.
    His method of travel never failed to give him a pleasurable exhilaration and it is one which most people have experienced from time to time in their dreams. He moved quite effortlessly, as though he was flying some feet above the pavement, with his head held forward and his legs stretched out behind him, but he was not conscious of their having any weight, and was able to direct himself to right or left without any motion at all but by the mere suggestion of his mind.
    As he entered the Square he noted that the house on its north-west corner had already been demolished by a bomb; then he suddenly remembered that he did not know where No. 22 was situated and that it would be impossible for him to find it by normal